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Graham Platner will appear on the cover of an upcoming issue of TIME magazine.
In a profile published online Thursday morning, a TIME correspondent charts the Sullivan oyster farmer’s meteoric rise on the Pine Tree State’s political scene, as well as the turbulence that beset his campaign after takeoff.
That story, which will run in the magazine’s June 8th edition, comes on the heels of a new poll giving Platner a 7-point edge over Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins among likely voters this November. Platner, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee after term-limited Gov. Janet Mills bowed out of the race in April, has led in poll after poll of likely primary voters.
His rise is a reflection of the nation’s political moment defined by President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, the TIME correspondent argues. Platner isn’t a smooth-talking technocrat, but rough-hewn and, as one supporter affectionately described him, “crotchety, old Down East.”
And rough around the edges he is indeed.
The insurgent candidate who stormed onto the political scene last year came under fire last fall over unearthed inflammatory internet posts and revelations that he had a chest tattoo depicting a skull superimposed over crossbones, resembling the Totenkopf symbol adopted by the Nazi SS during World War II.
Platner denied knowing that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol. He got the tattoo in 2007 while deployed abroad with the U.S. Marines. While on leave, Platner and other Marines went to Croatia, where they got “very inebriated” and decided to get tattoos. He said that they all picked “terrifying” designs off the wall.
He has since gotten it covered.
Platner has tried to distance himself from his past internet posts, including numerous deleted posts in which Platner asked why Black people “don’t tip,” suggesting that women concerned about rape not drink around certain people, and alluding to jokes about a “zombie” Jesus and his mother Mary being a “skank,” among others.
Mills, who hit Platner hard over his internet posts in a series of campaign ads, has said that Republicans would make “mincemeat” of Platner if he emerges as the party’s standard-bearer for the November election.
One theme that Platner and his supporters have beat the drum on is the idea of redemption arcs and growth, according to the TIME profile.
“I wouldn’t have married Graham if he hadn’t gone to therapy. I wouldn’t have married him if he didn’t learn from his mistakes,” Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, told TIME.
It will be an uphill battle for Democrats to unseat Collins, who officially announced her historic bid for a sixth term in February. She has handily beaten back challengers, including in 2020 when she defied polls and expectations to secure a fifth term in the Senate. But Collins, who has been ranked the country’s most bipartisan senator, has seen her popularity slump since Republican President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.
Republicans are largely aligned with Collins, who commanded 67% support among likely primary voters, according to the University of New Hampshire’s February Pine Tree State Poll.
The Senate race is shaping up to be an expensive one, with the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, pledging to spend at least $42 million to help Collins defend her seat, while the Democratic Senate Majority PAC has reserved $24 million in ad time for the fall. Another PAC, Pine Tree Results, is spending $2 million on a series of broadsides against Platner focusing on his online posts.
If Collins is successful in winning a sixth term, she would be Maine’s longest-serving U.S. senator.
